April 2013 Unemployment Report

April 2013
Unemployment Rate:             7.5 percent
Unemployed Americans:     11.7 million

“Real” Unemployment    

• The “real” unemployment or U-6 rate is 13.9 percent for April 2013. This is the total percentage of unemployed and underemployed workers. 

• The “real” number of unemployed Americans is 21.9 million. These are people who are unemployed (11.7 million), want work but have stopped searching for a job (2.3 million), or are working part time because they can’t find full time employment (7.9 million).

Labor Force Participation   

• The labor force participation rate is 63.3 percent, unchanged from last month but down from 63.6 percent in January. The labor force participation rate is at its lowest level since May 1979. 

• If the labor force participation rate were the same as when the President took office, the unemployment rate would be 10.9 percent. 

• The share of American adults with jobs in April was 58.6 percent, roughly the same for more than three years. This is approximately five percentage points below its prerecession peak. 

Employment    

• The Department of Labor reported an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent for April 2013, a decrease of 0.1 percentage points, reporting an increase of 165,000 nonfarm jobs.

• President Obama promised an unemployment rate of 5.2 percent by this time.

• Concern has been raised that despite positive reports in other areas of the economy, job growth continues to remain sluggish. In 2012, the economy added an average of 262,000 jobs a month. In 2013, the economy has added an average of 196,000 jobs per month. 

• Employment increased in professional and business services (+73,000), retail trade (+29,000) and health care (+19,000). Employment in construction declined (-6,000) and government declined (-11,000). Within government, federal employment fell by 8,000, state government fell by 1,000 and local government lost 2,000 jobs.  

• Information collected by the Federal Reserve indicates that health care reform continues to have an impact on hiring across the country. The Beige Book, which gathers anecdotal information on current economic conditions from across the country, reported recently that employers in many Federal Reserve Bank districts cited the Affordable Care Act as reason for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff, in addition to restrained sales growth. 

• There has been increased attention on some of the ways the sluggish economy may be attributable to the Affordable Care Act. The law requires employers with more than 50 employees to offer health insurance to part-time employees working 30 hours a week or more. Rather than provide health care to more workers, a growing number of employers are choosing instead to cut hours. 

• Today’s unemployment rate of 7.5 percent is the lowest monthly rate during the entire Obama Administration. The monthly unemployment rate has been hovering around 8 percent for his entire time in office, spiking as high as 10.0 percent in October 2009.

Weeks, Hours & Wages

• The number of Americans searching for work for more than 27 weeks is 4.4 million. The average number of weeks a worker is unemployed is 36.5 weeks.

• The average work week for private nonfarm employees decreased by 0.2 hour to 34.4 hours.

• The average hourly private nonfarm payroll increased by 4 cents to $23.87. Year over year hourly earnings have risen just 1.8 percent. Consumer Price Index is up 1.6 percent.